


Numbers

by Leanansidhe



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Everything Hurts, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Trauma, all aboard the HMS Trashcompactor, post-TFA, slight dark!Rey, sorry about this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 05:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5816317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leanansidhe/pseuds/Leanansidhe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren and Rey share a force bond, but they are both committed to their causes. Kylo Ren won't leave the Dark, and Rey can't leave the Light. There are only three ways this could end - and Kylo Ren makes the wrong choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning and the End

**Author's Note:**

> Super-angst take on the consequences of a Force Bond, hope you enjoy. Set ten years after the events of TFA, assumes that the First Order and Resistance have been at war since then, pretty much a strike here and a strike there, waiting for the other side to make a dramatic error. 
> 
> A few things  
> 1) TW for mentions of suicide ideation. Not graphic, but please read with caution if that's triggering for you. That will probably show up in chapter 2? maybe. I'll TW again before I post that.  
> 2) Rated T for the above reason + major character death, but rating may change. 
> 
> So yeah, HMS Trashcompactor casting off, all aboard! :)

One: Alone

This is how it begins: with him in her head. "So lonely." her interrogator croons, and that's when she first feels it, a resonance, a recognition, a flicker of an understanding pass between them for a second and it's gone again, while he rifles through her memory.

Later it feels obscene, that their connection was born out of this torture, this mind-rape. Sometimes she thinks of his voice in that moment, saying those words - "You know I can take whatever I want" - and she wants to vomit.

He sits in her mind like a bruise that won't heal, tender and painful to the touch. And makes her love him, damn him forever.

He hears that last part and she feels him smile, feels sadness and anger and love pour through their connection in near-equal measures. _I_ am _damned_ , he thinks at her. _Love you too._

__——_ _

Two: Duality

__And this is how it ends: they are so close now that the bond hums with it._ _

They are on the battlefield, because where else would they be? It's chaos, but they are the eye of the storm. He strikes, and she parries, lightsabers clashing. She tries a hit and he turns it. Rey has never felt so powerful, terrifyingly so. The Force rushes through them like a flood. She can hear everything he thinks and knows he is just as aware. Every blow she feels in his head before he tries it, and they know they are evenly matched. When you can read your opponent's mind, stalemate comes quickly. She's smaller than him, less physically powerful, but after so long she has enough tricks that it doesn't seem to matter. 

_We could do anything together, Rey_. He whispers in her head, and she knows it's true. 

_Not on your side_. she replies. 

This is their oldest argument, nearly ten years old, and they both know every word of it by heart. She's seen it, in his head. In her head. This close, it's hard to tell which is which. She parries again and strikes in a smooth motion. She stands with him over Snoke's body, Dark Lady to his Dark Lord. The world fears them, the new emperors, and they shape the universe to their will. They will live forever, in his vision. 

In hers, they die, eventually, old and surrounded by children and grandchildren. He thinks this is morbid. 

And so it goes. 

_I had to try_. he says, and shrugs inside his mind. This is the only thing about him the she still hates. She strikes out, hard, and she has lost her centre, carelessly, and left an opening. She realizes her mistake in the same millisecond he does, and they aren't the only ones. 

_Kill her!_ they both hear Snoke's voice inside his head, echoing painfully in their private sanctuary. He has been watching with interest, knowing eliminating Rey would eliminate one half of the Resistance's force-users. None of the apprentices are ready for the Knights of Ren. Snoke has long since given up swaying Rey to the Dark, however much Kylo Ren clings to it. He babbles it over and over and time slows to irrelevance. 

It's possible. She can't pull back the blow fast enough to stop him. He's suddenly very calm and she feels his thought coalesce - either he strikes here, or he accepts the blow. There are no other choices. 

"No!" the word tears out of her mouth, and frantic, she pushes the third choice, sending it into him with such force they stop hearing Snoke for a fraction of a second. _Block. Leave him. Come with me._

_He'll find me._ Kylo thinks. They've been over this so many times before, she isn't sure which of them actually thinks of it first. Point, counterpoint. 

She feels him make the choice, pulls up hard on her saber but time rushes back with such force and there has never, ever been enough time. They feel the blow run through them when her blade connects. 


	2. Sitting Shiva

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so, TW for suicide ideation. It's pretty minor and not vividly described, but just in case.

Three: Waiting  


“Apparently,” Finn says, “she’s physically healthy.” He sighs, looking through the medbay window at the body of his friend. “But she won’t wake up. There’s something wrong with her brain.” His face twists in concern. “Or she doesn’t want to wake up.” 

Poe steps closer to his friend, resting his hand gently on Finn’s shoulder. “She’ll be ok. She’s a survivor.” He takes a breath. “Whatever happened, whatever… that was, she’s get through this.”

“The way she screamed, though…” Finn’s voice breaks suddenly and he does not continue.

Luke, standing to one side of the medical observation room, with his sister in a chair nearby, shakes his head as if clearing an image away, and takes a deep breath. “The Force.” He begins, and stops. Takes another breath. “It’s definitely… a ‘disturbance’ doesn’t seem like the right word.”

Leia nods. “I feel it. Disturbance is too small. I don’t think I’ve felt anything like it before, except maybe when…” Everyone knows she is thinking of her son, at some point or another. One of his atrocities…. But that is over now. Never again.

“That’s definitely what’s wrong.” Luke says. “It has to be.”

The four watchers fall back into silence. Rey lies in the bed below, not moving. Finn imagines she’s not even breathing, anymore.

Four: Dying

On the fourth day, the medi-droid says something in her brain waves has changed – she’s waking up, maybe, slowly. Luke says the disturbance, whatever it is, still swirls around her. Finn and Poe go into the medbay, but Luke and Leia say they cannot – it’s too difficult to focus. Neither Luke or Leia mention it to Finn or Poe, but they don’t have to be force-sensitive to guess that this “disturbance” is not Light, and the twins clearly find the Darkness… challenging. Privately, Leia tells Luke it reminds her of Kylo. Luke agrees, and it troubles him. Rey has turned in her sleep – a good sign, apparently. She’s facing the wall, now. 

“Please wake up, Rey.” Poe weedles. He slumps into a chair near her bed. “Please.”

Finn smiles at him slightly and goes around to the other side of the bed. He stops short when he sees her face.

“Problem?” says Poe, seeing his expression. “What’s wrong?”

Finn shakes his head, his mouth dry, heart breaking. “It looks like…” he draws a shaky breath. “She’s crying.”

Poe comes to stand near him, sees the tears glistening on her face. Her eyes are closed. “I thought she’s unconscious?” He glances up at the med readings above her head. “She is. She’s sleeping.”

“What the hell.” Finn says, quietly. “Rey, what the hell happened?”

Of course, there’s no answer.

Five: Senses

When Rey wakes up, she wakes screaming.

Finn, intent on keeping constant vigil, has drifted off in the observation area, stretched out of the uncomfortable bed some droid wheeled in. The sound terrifies him back into consciousness.

“Rey!” he shouts, dashing out of the room, tripping over himself to get to the medbay. Luke meets him in the hall, running faster than Finn thought the older man could move. When they enter the room, Luke has to pause, visibly shaken. Finn, for once grateful he can’t feel the Force around them, gathers Rey up in his arms. She screams on.

“Rey! I’m here, calm down.” He tries to will her to stop.

Luke brushes past him and reaches out to hold Rey’s hand, breathing heavily, eyes closed. She transitions from a scream to deep, heavy sobs. Luke’s eyes open and they are tight with sudden pain. “Finn.” He says. “Get that medi-droid in here. We’ll have to sedate her.”

“But she just woke up!” Finn protests.

“Now.” Luke said, his voice grating. Finn feels the push on his mind from the Jedi, and that alone is enough to move him halfway across the room without realizing he’s done so.

“Rey.” Luke says to his apprentice, trying to project calm. “Focus.”

The woman draws a shuddery breath. “it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts.” She repeats it between sobs, like a mantra, until the medi-droid sedates her and she falls back into unconsciousness.

Six: Falling

When Rey wakes up the second time, she does so silently. Everything, everything hurts. It’s as if someone has cored her out, like a fruit, and left only the shell of Rey behind. Or she’s missing a limb, except it’s her whole body. His whole body. She feels like she shouldn’t be allowed to breathe.

“Rey!” this time it’s Poe there. He forced Finn to go get something to eat (and maybe a shower) about 20 minutes ago. “You’re back.”

She nods.

“I’m glad you aren’t doing the screaming thing again, you know?” he says, smiling. “This is a huge improvement.” His smile hurts her, and she has to turn away.“Rey?” his voice goes gentle. “Are you ok? We thought you were…” he hesitates, and she can hear him swallow. She feels his hand reach out, touch her shoulder. “We thought you might not make it.”

I wish I hadn’t. She thinks. She shudders and can’t keep it from becoming a sob. “Go away.” She chokes out, and, after a minute, feels the hand withdraw.She isn’t sure how long she cries, but it feels like years.

Luke is comes into the medbay for a while, and she feels him hovering over her consciousness, which only makes her feel more out-of-control. He doesn’t say anything. When he leaves, he issues a command to the others: there must always be someone watching Rey. They will take shifts. The others don’t question him about it; Finn feels like he doesn’t want to know the answers to THAT question.

Seven: Hells

Rey has spent her whole life surviving against improbable odds, but all she wants now is to be allowed to die. At some point during night six, she realized faintly that thinking of ways to die is easier than thinking of anything else, so now she thinks of it constantly. She wonders if it’s possible to Force-choke oneself, or if one would pass out before accomplishing the job. She tries to call her lightsaber, but her hold on the Force is so shaky anyways that it collapses around her. She can’t think about the word suicide, though. It’s too real, too close to everything she’s trying not to think about. 

Surviving is a habit, though, and it doesn’t let go of her so easily. Also, she knows they are all watching her. No one is asking her anything, perhaps knowing that she won’t be able to deal with it if they do. But she can’t stand the watching and all the questions hanging in the air like rotting fruit that won’t just do the appropriate thing and fall of the vine, so she gets up, and shoves every part of herself into a drawer and starts surviving, mechanically. She eats, drinks water when it’s offered. A small, hysterical part of herself thinks about speaking only in binary, but she decides not to speak at all.

About half-way through the seventh day, when she’s sitting and staring at the wall, her treacherous brain stops devoting all resources to ways to die, and starts chanting at her instead: Alone, Alone, Alone, Alone. _Great,_ she thinks. _This is so much better._ She can't meditate, because half of herself has been torn away, she could sooner fly than focus on calm.

Everyone visits her - first Luke, then Poe and Finn, then Leia, but she turns to face the wall.


End file.
